In Italy, infrastructure, clean energy and the landscape walk along a very narrow road. There is public money to combine the three chapters in a single strategy, but as always - the government reminds us of this these days - it must be used well and in a balanced way. What better occasion to broaden that imaginary road, associating it with the world of business and work? With the political eye now fixed on the funds of the Recovery and Resilience Plan, the Presidents of the Regions have come forward with the government to outline a less nebulous horizon. There are infrastructures, energies and the landscape at stake 62 billion euros. According to the Minister of Infrastructure for Sustainable Mobility, Enrico Giovannini, will all be given to the Regions by the end of 2021.
La State-Regions Conference it was the venue chosen by the Presidents to update the government on their needs and present proposals that differed from the usual complaints. Also because the North-South contradictions, the different performances in public spending, the use of European funds, are known and controlled by the government. Specifically, if the President of Campania Vincenzo De Luca argues that the problem is not the funding or the works to be included in the planning of the Pnrr, but "a work of radical de-bureaucratisation, because between opinions, against opinions, bureaucratic swamp, things end up not being implemented", there are those who rack your brain between laws, regulations and environmental issues.
The President of Tuscany, Eugenio Giani, for example, it is said on two opposing fronts. “On the one hand – he explains – the environment asks us for renewable sources, namely photovoltaic and wind energy. On the other we see that, referring to what the Ministry has indicated, namely 25 square kilometers of photovoltaic panels, the Tuscan environment tells us: but where? In the cultivated areas?”.
Perhaps a little more clarity, at least from the Minister Roberto Cingolani, it should be done. In order not to pass as opponents tout court of clean energy, the request for a national law for areas suitable for renewables arrives at Palazzo Chigi. With a new and more concise method to identify the surfaces suitable for photovoltaic and wind power, respecting the landscape. Are we really sure that with the rules we have we protect the "unique landscape in the world"? This is the question that the Regions ask themselves, which - it must be said - are not without fault in complicating the transition to a sustainable development model.
The nodes on the territories are interconnected. Think about making the infrastructure in a non-invasive way, creating work, also capturing private capital, countering the opposition of environmentalists and committees means starting from the existing distortions. Sicily, tormented by the eternal debate on bridge over the Strait he goes to school. The costs of the transport deficit of the connections with the peninsula are among the worst in Europe. Gaetano Armao, Councilor for the Economy, explains that being an island, with the difficulties associated with transport and connections, costs Sicilians between 6,04 and 6,54 billion euros a year. In practice "the same money that would be used to build the bridge over the Strait".
Finally, the "marginal" Regions are pushing for a 2022 year of real change, with feasible ambitions. Abruzzo, which is also busy with a project for the production of hydrogen, "has suffered decades of infrastructure delays and lack of investment in railways, ports, highways", says the President Marcus Marsilius, . Now, even considering all the environmental and energy options, Abruzzo (but this applies to all of Central Italy) is in difficulty with the rest of the world, starting with the surrounding regions. Overcoming delays forward, spending the money quickly, however, has a lot to do with the procedures and rights that the Regions themselves claim. An issue that the government does not underestimate. We work together, said Giovannini, but "then it will be up to the contracting authorities to start the work". And so we return to the beginning of the road we mentioned above.
